Gays in the bathroom
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If Marcel Proust, Jean Genet, Henry Miller, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud were inspired by the pissoir, it is because these dirty places also harbored mystery.
Most of the exhibition deals with men having sex in public toilets. I only briefly touch upon it in my exhibition, with a section dedicated to the history of public toilets for women.
Cruising, the practice of soliciting sex in public bathrooms that became especially prominent in the latter half of the 20th century, sees non-normative desire seek out the bathroom as a place for queer sexual expression. That’s why—without ignoring the sexual dimension—I’m very proud to exhibit 150 years of history connected with public urinals here.
Surviving accounts of molly-houses suggest that they were not just quasi-brothels, but spaces of gender non-conformity, artistic expression and political activism: one account details a theatrical performance of mock heterosexuality by ‘mollies’ who would ‘go out by Couples into another Room on the same Floor, to be marry’d, as they call’d it’ and ‘for that Reason they call that Room, The Chappel’.
Don’t forget that homosexuality was banned by law for a very long time. So why has the bathroom now become such a contentious part of the discussion of LGBTQ+ rights in British political discourse?
“By illuminating the unseen queer history of the bathroom that runs counter to the misleading narrative that modern-day gender divisions are sacred mechanisms for sexual safety, the bathroom can be reclaimed as a fraught and sexual space for queer people, both now and historically.”
Any reader of the Telegraph’s recent opinion columns might wonder when exactly the historically right-leaning paper had become so committed to feminism: with one of the lowest percentages of female writers of the big British broadsheet newspapers, and an archive of headlines such as ‘Men “suffer sexism in the publishing industry”’, this recent political turn towards a commitment to apparent progressivism is more than just surprising.
I ended up fainting in the dark room.
The next thing I know, I am being slapped awake by a good Samaratan. But this is an anxious correlation: if the basis for gender fixity is merely the difference between two adjacent rooms, then the possibility of a “wrong” body destabilising this order is dangerously apparent. Rather than a concern for feminism, then, these ideas actually seek the preservation of the bathroom’s historical norms, norms which order bodies based on rules of appearance and acceptability.
Don’t move.’
r/askgaybros, Small-Wonder7503Unfortunately, the good Samaritan’s concern took an unexpected turn.
Martin has spent years collecting tens of thousands of historic objects and photos and conducting dozens of interviews about restrooms to try to capture the essence of that freedom. But what about countries where homosexuality is still prohibited?
The user explained that he quickly left the sauna after realizing it was his uncle.
“I’m 21, not openly out, I recently started visiting gay sauna. I think the jacuzzi did something to my blood pressure. He curated the exhibition Porn That Way and wrote the book Porn: From Andy Warhol to X-Tube.
Gay bathhouses have long been a cornerstone of LGBTQ+ culture—welcoming spaces that foster connection, community, and sometimes, moments that leave you wishing for a quick exit.
Causing a Stink!: Why the Bathroom Has Always Been a Queer Space
Georgia Scheerhout reclaims the queer history of the bathroom in the face of polarising political debate.
Queerness has always had something to say about being in a bathroom.
She longs to get closer; her myopic obsession with such public sexual displays of touching and arousal means the Turkish bathhouse, rather than the culture itself, becomes the centre of her letters home. They said women use toilets for sex for different reasons: to get away from men, to have a safe space, to close the door behind them. Below, Martin spoke with VICE about restroom cruising’s historical and cultural impact, and how the history he’s surfaced has touched visitors in unexpected ways.
Your exhibition is called “Public Toilets, Private Affairs,” and chronicles the history of gay cruising and sex in public place in Paris and Berlin.
In an early 18th century trial, one man, George Whytle, described being ‘help’d’ to ‘two or three Husbands there’. Now more than ever, in the aftermath of the US election results with all that a second Trump presidency will mean for the policing of transgender bodies, it is vital we use these histories of queer euphoria as a reminder of the importance of hope and resistance.
It was Victorian society that first produced the segregated bathroom, a political mechanism to ensure the separation of the private, feminine space, from the public, masculine space.
The architecture of the public bathroom follows this logic by directing the flow of one “type” of body into this space and another type of body into that space.
Too much time in the hot tub
Reddit user Small-Wonder7503 shared a story that started with a minor health scare and ended in a truly shocking moment.
“One time, I was at a gay bathhouse, and I was in the jacuzzi.
It’s a beautiful story, and banal at the same time.